The plaintiffs (who included residents of Anne Arundel County as well
as members of both the Republican and Democratic party central committees)
alleged that the Maryland General Assembly failed to make a good faith
effort to achieve numerical equality and that the congressional plan was
adopted with discriminatory intent to "deprive the plaintiffs of an opportunity
to effectively participate in the political process." Plaintiffs
also alleged that the plan constituted an unconstitutional gerrymander,
primarily because Anne Arundel County, Maryland's fourth most populous
county, was divided among four congressional districts, thereby diluting
the votes of the residents.

The Court ruled that Maryland's congressional redistricting plan was
constitutional despite relatively small mathematical population deviations
between districts. The overall variance of the plan was ten persons,
a variance of .00167 percent. The justifications offered by the State
(keeping three major regions intact, creating a minority voting district,
and recognizing incumbent representation with its attendant seniority in
the House of Representatives) were found sufficient to meet the tests under
Karcher.

Regarding the issue of an unconstitutional gerrymander, the Court found
that "carving Anne Arundel County into four pieces--while perhaps enough
to raise eyebrows--does not violate any federal constitutional provision,
including the mandate of Art. I, § 2, to give full effect to the voice
of the ‘people.'" Essentially, the plaintiffs failed to make
a Davis showing of vote dilution.

Legislative Redistricting Cases, 331
Md. 574, 629 A.2d 646 (1993)

Several parties brought action in the Maryland Court of Appeals challenging
the Governor's redistricting plan. The Court of Appeals, Maryland's
highest court, has original jurisdiction in state legislative redistricting
matters. It appointed a special master to consider the challenges
and report to the Court.

The Court found:

The Governor's Redistricting Advisory Committee provided proper public
notice of redistricting hearings necessary to comply with the constitutional
requirement that the Governor prepare a redistricting plan after public
hearings.

The 20th legislative district as created by the Governor's plan satisfied
constitutional compactness requirements.

The Governor's plan satisfied the "one person, one vote" principle of the
United States Constitution, because the plan had a maximum deviation of
less than ten percent and Maryland's constitutional language requiring
"substantially equal population" does not impose a stricter standard for
population equity than the ten percent rule imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The plan did not violate the Voting Rights Act because: it failed to create
at least one minority single-member district in a portion of a county,
absent a showing that minority groups in question were politically cohesive
and voted as a block; it created minority districts that allegedly did
not contain sufficiently large minority populations to elect minority representatives,
where districts had more than 50 percent African American population and
no White incumbents; it did not create a single-member minority district
in a two-member district with 36 percent African American population, absent
a showing that the two-member Delegate district contained a sufficiently
compact, politically cohesive minority population; and the plan did not
create every conceivable minority district.

The plan did not result in partisan gerrymandering.

The plan adequately described districts, although it referred to precincts,
census tracts, and blocks to describe districts, rather than visible geographical
features.

Plaintiffs challenged the legislative redistricting plan enacted by
the Maryland General Assembly on the ground that it violated the Voting
Rights Act and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Defendant Governor and other state officials moved to dismiss or stay proceedings
on abstention grounds pending review of the plan by the Maryland Court
of Appeals. The three-judge district court denied the motion but
agreed to stay its proceedings informally pending discussions with the
state court about how best to coordinate their parallel proceedings.

The President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Delegates, who
had served as members of the Governor's advisory committee that drafted
the plan that served as the basis of the plan the Governor introduced,
had been named individually as defendants in the suit. They moved
for an order dismissing themselves as defendants, based on their legislative
immunity. The Court held that "any inquiry into the Maryland
Legislature's consideration of the Governor's Plan or its failure to ratify
an alternative plan is entirely barred," and granted the motion.
The Court reserved a ruling on whether they might be questioned concerning
their actions in helping to draft the plan before the Governor introduced
it.

The three-judge district court held that neither the state Senate nor
Delegate districting violated the "one person, one vote" principle.
It also held that the legislative districting plan did not contain unconstitutional
poltical gerrymandering. Regarding the claims made under the Voting
Rights Act, the Court found that a mere showing of a general pattern of
racially polarized voting was not itself sufficient to require that the
plan maximize the number of majority minority districts statewide.
However, the Court did find that the redistricting plan violated the Voting
Rights Act in the Eastern Shore region of the State.

More specifically, the Court held that voters failed to demonstrate
that the 9.84 percent deviation in the Senate portion of the legislative
plan was not caused by court-approved state policies. Consequently,
they failed to establish a violation of the equal protection clause.
Similarly, the state Delegate districts, despite a maximum deviation of
10.67 percent did not violate the equal protection clause because the deviations
were necessary to preserve boundaries of political subdivisions, preserve
cores of prior districts, avoid splitting precincts, and respect natural
boundaries.

Minority-party voters failed to establish that the plan had a discriminatory
effect necessary for a successful claim of unconstitutional political gerrymandering,
even though minority-party members would continue to be underrepresented
in the General Assembly. There was no evidence that the plan would
prevent the minority party from raising campaign funds, discourage voters
from registering with the minority party, prevent its members from participating
in public debate, or discourage minority-party members from running for
office. The party held 20 percent of the legislative seats and the
legislative majority was responsive to its interests.

The Court did find that under a totality of circumstances, the state's
redistricting plan for the House of Delegates in the Eastern Shore region
violated the Voting Rights Act. Among the totality of circumstances,
it found that: the bloc-voting White majority consistently defeated candidates
supported by the region's politically cohesive African American Community,
there was a history of voting discrimination in the region, single-shot
voting was frustrated, thereby impairing the opportunity of Black voters
to elect representatives of their choice; there had never been an
African American delegate or senator from the region; and in countywide
elections only five African Americans had been elected, all from majority-minority
districts.

The State was ordered to prepare and submit a new redistricting plan
for the Eastern Shore that created "a single-member delegate district with
a majority-black voting-age citizen population" and complied with the U.S.
Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.